Guidelines For Planning A Service Of Reconciliation

The service of reconciliation should be planned with the needs of the local worshiping community in mind. The following checklist highlights concerns which should be addressed by worship planners.

1) A service of reconciliation celebrates redemption, justification, and salvation in which God forgives us seventy times seven through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. It is a Christian celebration because, through our faith in Jesus, we as Christians are being reconciled to God and to one another. A service of reconciliation can never be only an individual event, but must somehow encompass both the personal and also the wider ecclesial and social dimensions. As the word reconciliation indicates, the service of reconciliation celebrates a return to harmony after that harmony has in some way been disrupted ("How can we who died to sin go on living in it?" [Rom. 6:2, nrsv]). 2) A service of reconciliation can focus on: (a) the individual, where the disharmony is within oneself; (b) the interpersonal, where the disharmony is between and within persons, families, churches, ethnic groups, or nations; (c) the cosmic, where the disharmony is between humankind and the world of creation. 3) The basic elements of a reconciliation service include: (a) an introduction, which focuses on the disharmony; (b) the proclamation of the Word of God, which confronts the evil and declares God's judgment and mercy; (c) the call to forgiveness and healing and the response of the penitent by some sort of confession and sign of amendment; (d) the forgiveness being declared; (e) the response of praise and thanksgiving. 4) Partners within the service of reconciliation are: (a) the community, which as the whole church and as a priestly people acts in different ways in the work of reconciliation, especially by praying, interceding, supporting, and so on; (b) the repentant sinner, who may be any hurting member of the community or even the total ecclesial community seen as a group; (c) the presider, the minister, or the confessor, who in the name of the community, though also a sinner, conducts the service for an individual or for a group, by presenting God's Word, calling to repentance, receiving the confession, speaking God's Word of forgiving love, and rejoicing in God's mercy.